Performance Butchering

When Steve and Bill's sister Lee met and married Johnny, they gained an older brother who was more than happy to take them hunting and fishing. James, their father, was never much of an outdoorsman. Johnny was. He grew up in a sprawling, male-dominated family in Florida's interior that held near-daily fishing and hunting in season to be as routine as dishwashing and sweeping the floor. It was perfectly natural for Johnny to ask the two boys along when he continued these lifelong pursuits.

This arrangement had its downside, of course. Imagine being a newly married young man and having to explain to your bride's parents how their youngest child got that fishhook through his cheek! (Because his brother yanked his line too hard to remove it from a submerged tree limb, and Steve just happened to be standing in the wrong place when it came loose.) Most of the time, things went well, and the trio spent countless sun-kissed weekend days bobbing in a little boat on the fish-rich mud flats near Tampa Bay.

Pastimes such as hunting and fishing create their own aftermath chores, which are more comfortably handled in the hunter/fisherman's own back yard than in the woods or the boat. Some of these chores are not particularly welcome in a typical suburb. Lee and Johnny's house did not start out in a suburb. When they bought it, the area was slightly-built-up-rural. They acquired certain habits, lolling about in their isolation, that they were loathe to give up in later years, even after a restaurant was built on the property next door.

Fall rolled around and Johnny went hunting as he normally did. He bagged a nice buck, as he normally did, hauled it home and hung it from a stout tree limb in the back yard for butchering.

Johnny honed a couple of good knives, got out the freezer wrap, then, as the dinner crowd began to arrive at the restaurant, he settled at his picnic table with a glass of tea, ready to get to work on the deer carcass as soon as the restaurant staff closed the Levelors for the evening.

An hour passed and the blinds stayed open. Johnny began to grow impatient. He had observed the restaurant's routines for months since they opened. They always closed those blinds by five-thirty. That day, whoever was supposed to do it was too busy doing something else at the usual time, or simply forgot.

Having long since finished his tea and watching in frustration as his light diminished, Johnny picked up one of his knives, set his tray conveniently nearby, and went to work.

If you have never seen an animal butchered, rest assured, it is a messy process. Blood drips, tendons dangle, and the butcher gets splattered with blood. This is true for professionals and amateurs alike, no matter how much or how little experience they have. There is simply no tidy way to turn a dead animal into cookable portions of meat.

Johnny has butchered many a deer, and it wasn't long before his tray was piled high. He rinsed his knife at the outside tap, and just before he carried the tray into the kitchen so Lee could wrap and label the pieces, he glanced toward the restaurant.