Excerpt



One Sunday afternoon stuck out in my mind, as my grandfather took me to his place of work; his brother Emilio Dantes butchers shop. I had never visited the butcher shop and I was both scared and excited to see this mysterious place that no one in my family liked to talk about. It was whispered about at family gatherings and whenever I would ask they would change the subject. The silence only added to the shops mystique and drew me to its dark secrets. I had never met any family members that worked there as they were always kept separate from our family gatherings. It was like they were isolated and banished from our side of the Dante family for crimes that I didnt understand.

I would only meet two members of this banished family that day, as the shop was closed on Sundays. My Uncle Emilio was waiting at the shop as my grandfather and I pulled up in his Cadillac. The first thing I realized was that the butcher shop looked more like a farm. There was an old barn attached to the shop, which held all of the poor sacrificial animals. It was the last old style butcher shop that had the animals living on the premises. On the opposite side of the shop was a fenced area that had a few large brown horses. They were proud and confidant as they pranced and galloped about the yard. Sometimes they were lazy and didnt move a muscle all day, and just laid in the shade of the trees. I wanted to feed them, but was afraid to.

Uncle Emilios nickname was Mourgie, as he had studied to become a mortician before opening this butcher shop. Everyone called him Mourgie I guess as a joke that just stuck with him. He was short but muscular and thick like a bulldog. Emilio always wore a snow cap to cover his bald head, even in the summer time! He constantly smoked Marlboro reds and had a deep, baritone raspy voice from his years of smoking and hard work. When he laughed, it sounded more like a dying mans cough and choke for more oxygen. Every working man had his poison and his was Marlboro, horses and late night card games at his shop.

His only son was Jesse Dante, who was also waiting there for my grandfather and me. Jesse was in his mid twenties and worked side by side with his father in everything. He owned one of the horses in the adjacent pen, and was looking into racing him at one of the tracks. This required a lot of training, money, connections and finding a good jockey. This was apparently the reason for this secret meeting of the Dante men.

Emilio introduced himself to me first and rubbed my hair with his thick sausage like fingers. Jesse greeted me and asked if I wanted to race his horse for him at the track. I wasnt sure if he was joking or not as he had a serious look on his face. Unlike his father, Jesse was tall and had thick curly black hair, along with a western style mustache. He was as confident as his horse was, and looked like he had the world by the balls. It looked like nothing could bother him as he had a coolness about him that I noticed immediately. Jesse always lit his fathers cigarettes before Emilio could get his lighter out of his pocket. They were open with each other not like father and son but like brothers. My grandfather spoke with Jesse privately as Uncle Emilio took me next door to visit the shops temporary residents. It was like half of Noahs Ark was crammed into a tiny, smelly barn. There were cows, pigs, sheep and even a huge bull. The smell lingered like death, which was ironic considering the animals date with the slab. I didnt really comprehend what these animals were doing there, and naively thought it was a dirty petting zoo. The animals looked sad and depressed. I didnt even want to pet them. Emilio sensed my sadness and tried cheering me up by alerting me to a pig shitting. I laughed and Emilio let loose his black lung hack-laugh-cough. I wondered why I had been kept away from this side of my family and figured it had something to do with this place.

Jesse and Nick soon joined us in the barn, each with halos of smoke over their heads, and smiling like some devilish deal had just been written in blood. We went to watch the horses gallop about in their fenced yard. The men were smoking and plotting something involving Jesses racing horse. I wanted to see the race they were talking about, but was told it could get dangerous, and they didnt want anything to happen to me. I walked down to the stream and felt like I belonged there among the Dante men and the depressed animals. I related to both.