The Butcher and the Breather

That night I had a heart attack. That night I laid in bed and listened to the people above me have sex and I waited for my heart to stop once and for all. It was two in the morning and then three and I’m still rolling cigarettes while waiting for the end to come. It was a long wait and I couldn’t help thinking how boring such a way to go was, which is why I kept rolling cigarettes, kept waiting for my heart to steady itself enough before I could masturbate and fall asleep. I’d much rather die in my sleep than have to be aware of my death while it was happening, seems like such a boring way to go, lying in bed, smoking cigarettes, watching “Touch of Evil” with the sound off, an erection begging out my boxer shorts, seems so inappropriate.

But the heart did not stop and instead continued to attack my body and batter my brain, and by the time it was four in the morning I was asleep, awaking the next morning in sweat and drool with but an erection to keep me company. Then the phone rang and instead of answering it, I took a shower; I made some coffee; I bought some cigarettes. The next time the phone rang, I was checking my pulse; I was late for work; I was getting dressed in the same clothes I wore yesterday.

They say its anxiety. They say its not real, but I say how am I supposed to know what’s real, especially since the only person I’ve ever been is myself. How am I expected to have any context for what is and what isn’t, if my only frame of reference is me. They call me crazy. They say I’ve lost my mind. I say how can I lose what was never mine in the first place.
The phone rings again while I am walking to the bus. This time I answer it and all I hear is how heavy a woman breathes and I ask her why me but she doesn’t answer me. She just continues to breathe heavier and heavier. Then I hang up.

I have another heart attack on the bus. My left arm goes numb and my shoulders feel weak and my chest hollows and thumps. I would prefer not to die while riding public transportation. I would feel terrible about making all the other passengers late for work. So I get off the bus even though it’s not my stop and I try not to pass out until I’ve made it to the sidewalk. Then the phone rings again and instead of answering it, I light a cigarette.

I hate having heart attacks, which is why I smoke so much, but what choice do I have. I am a block away from work when I stop and consider turning around and going home. I am not sure if I can handle another day of Mr. Binky staring over my shoulder to make sure I have counted out the right change. If I go home, at least I can die in peace and quiet, even though that’s only true when I’m not at home. I turn around and walk a half a block until I think better of it and turn around again. I start walking again and then I stop walking again. I have absolutely no idea what I should do, which is typical of my thoughts lately, so I stop and start, so I smoke and don’t smoke, so I answer my phone and don’t answer my phone. Then suddenly I’m standing in front of the Food For All and Nicole is the first one to greet me. She is standing outside, nervously smoking a cigarette, and when she sees me, she throws it to the ground and looks at me as if I’ve done something wrong.

“You’re late!” she says.

“Why are you late?” she says.

Nicole has short black hair that curves forward to a point below her ears. Nicole has a small, pale face and light freckles below her eyes. Nicole has firm cheeks that blush easily when I look at her for too long a time.

“Why are you so pale?” she says.

“You haven’t been sleeping again, have you?” she says.

“You’re not drunk again, are you?” she says.

I would love Nicole if I didn’t hate Nicole, but I only hate Nicole because of how much she likes me and how much I hate myself. I don’t understand why she likes me so much and the only reason I can fathom is because she can see how much I hate myself, in turn making any possibility for me to love someone impossible, and thus making any possibility for us loving each other impossible, thus creating a safe place to hide both her love and my hate, never having to face such impossible possibilities.

“I’m not drunk,” I say.

“Let’s have another cigarette before we go in,” I say, but she already has a hold of my elbow and is already dragging me inside.

We make our way through Aisle 7, Ethnic Foods and Soups, to the back where our lockers are. This is the aisle devoted to the Latinos and the Asians with but a tiny space carved out from the Campbell soup for Kosher Jews.

“If this is ethnic than what does that make the rest of the food?” I ask.

“What does that make peanut butter?” I ask.

Nicole doesn’t answer since it is a question I ask every time she drags my by the elbow down Aisle 7. Instead she just shakes her head and drags harder.

Through the double doors, past the meat freezer to the lockers, where she opens mine and throws my vest at me; it hits me in the chest and lands on the floor. The nametag that reads: “Hi, I’m Irving. Ask me how I can help”, stares back up at me, and I say to it, “Hi, Irving,” and then, “How can you help,” and she says, “Stop fucking around,” and picks it up, this time pushing me in the chest with my vest in both her hands. “Put it on and get the hell out there,” she says. Then she starts to walk away while I’m still holding it out in front of me and before she is gone, she turns back around to say, “I’ll distract Binky,” before she smiles as if it was an afterthought and says, “And good morning,” which reminds me how much she enjoys trying to save me. And then she is gone and I wonder why she tries so hard to try and save me. And then I put on my vest and I look down at how I look and I see my nametag again and I say to it as if it was the first time I was seeing it, “Hey! My name is Irving too.” And then I begin my slow walk to my designated position of gainful employment.

My register is next to Nicole’s and she stares at me sideways while I ask a woman why she is buying toilet paper made of recycled paper when the factory-farmed meat she is buying has a far more devastating effect upon the environment than toilet paper made of non-

recycled paper. “Plus there is a lot less chafing with Charmin,” I add.

Nicole is trying to hide a smile as she tells the woman to just ignore me, which the woman was in the process of doing anyway. Then Nicole mouths the words “Stop it” at me as I count the wrong change out for the woman, turning a ten into a one as if I was Houdini.

The next woman looks like my mother and I ask her how my sisters are as I ring her up. I can hear Nicole laugh to herself before I hear Mr. Binky breathing over my shoulder.

“Were you late today?” he asks with a squint after I turn to him.

“Late for what?” I ask in return.

Mr. Binky doesn’t know how to talk to me, so instead he asks the same thing of Nicole, and Nicole says, “Of course not, Mr. Binky.” The woman who looks like my mother notices that I gave her the wrong change too. I blame Mr. Binky for distracting me, saying, “Sorry. Somebody was distracting me,” referring with my eyes to Mr. Binky who is still behind me. Then I count out her change again, this time turning a one into a ten with a wink to the woman, who winks back and says, “That’s better.” Then Mr. Binky says, “Don’t let it happen again,” and I’m not sure if he’s referring to the wrong change or being late for work so I say, “Don’t let what happen again?”

Mr. Binky has been the manager of the Food For All ever since he dropped out of community college. Mr. Binky is the type of man who has no idea how to wear his weight. He has short, skinny legs and he wears his trousers too far below his waist, probably, I assume, because he is subconsciously ashamed of the size of his penis and thus uses whatever means necessary to draw attention away from it, thus the fat that hangs like a mushroom cap above his belt, thus the belt tightened to at least two holes smaller than it should be, thus the bowtie. Poor Mr. Binky who only hires skinny girls half his age, except for me, of course, who only got hired to make it seem like he didn’t only hire skinny girls who are half his age.

Mr. Binky says, “You know what!” before he nods his head and walks away. Then another woman looks like my mother and she’s buying a bottle of vodka with her Cheerios and asks for a pack of menthols. “That’s the spirit!” I say before I give her the wrong change. Then more women. Then more change.

By the time the first break comes, I’ve already had another heart attack. This one came in the bathroom when I stood above the toilet trying to urinate but couldn’t because the butcher was talking to Binky somewhere beyond the closed the door. I could not hear the specifics but the participants were obvious from the tone of the dialogue. Conversations between the butcher and Mr. Binky usually consist of a long, slow monologue from the butcher with only slight interruptions for a breath of air and an agreement from Binky.

It is hard for me to urinate while overhearing a muffled conversation, thus the not peeing and the heart attack. I stared at myself in the dirty bathroom mirror while my face went ashen and my sweat glands were activated and my heart beat harder and harder while my left hand went numb. Then I emerged from the bathroom, annoyed at the inability to empty my bladder and I marched unsteadily to Nicole’s register and told her that I need a cigarette.

“Then have a cigarette,” she says, which is usually her response even though she knows that my declaration meant that I wanted to have a cigarette with her, and, as usual, I am deflated by her response and stumble unsteadily outside to have a cigarette with myself. “That’ll show her,” I think.

It is easy to hate Nicole especially considering how much I hate myself. So I hate Nicole and sit down on the curb and I light a cigarette when my phone begins to vibrate again in my pocket.

This time I listen to her breath as I smoke my cigarette and I do not hang up and I do not say “Hi”. Then Nicole is sitting next to me and I quickly hang up the phone and she lights her cigarette while asking if it’s her again.

“Sometimes it sounds like she’s just about to orgasm,” I say.

“Sometimes it sounds like she’s just about to die,” I say.

Nicole seems to understand and smokes while looking up to watch the smoke dissipate.

“She’s been calling everybody,” she says.

“Maybe she wants us to save her,” she says.

“Maybe,” I say.

It is a windy day and sometimes it is cold and sometimes it is warm. The parking lot is full of minivans and grandmothers loading groceries into trunks of cars the size of hearses, scattered shopping carts as if they were free-ranging cattle. We sit close to each other on the curb and when my leg shakes from the progressively mounting pressure on my bladder, our knees touch. Nicole pretends to not notice this, and soon I have moved my leg so it does not have to shake for us to touch. Nicole is small and sad. She lives in a small house with her cat and her mother. Her father left when she was ten and then he died when she was twelve and her mother likes to drink gin. She will go home to find her mother drinking gin upon the couch, watching reruns of Seinfeld and smoking menthol cigarettes. She will go home and make dinner for herself and eat by herself and then read a book and then go to sleep. She has many friends who she doesn’t like and she won’t call them until there is nothing but loneliness and then she will go out with them and have sex with men and then tell me about the sex with the men she had and lament the fact that men are only good for having sex with when she is lonely enough to need such a thing. She will go home and sit on her bed and pet her cat and read a book. Sometimes she calls me before she goes to sleep. Sometimes I don’t answer.

Nicole takes a heavy breath as she takes the last drag from her cigarette. Then she says that we should go back in and I say let’s have another cigarette first. I say that Binky smells like tuna fish and vinegar. I tell her that I heard him being lectured by the butcher again. Nicole doesn’t like the butcher. Nobody likes the butcher, which is why he’s so well liked. Then she stands up and says something about how strange everything has been lately: the breather and the butcher and the odd smell that sometimes wafts musky and deep from the meat freezer. She is looking down at me as she says this and I stare at the way her lips move and all I can think about is the way her lips move. Then my phone rings and she smiles at me and says, “Maybe it’s the breather,” and I say, “Maybe it’s the Binky,” and she says with more of a smile, “Maybe the breather is the Binky,” and I stand so that our shoulders are touching, and we’re both smiling as we make our way back inside.

It is usually at this point in the day, after the first cigarette, when I realize how much I no longer want to do this, but what choice do I have. I’d rather have another heart attack than have to do this again, so I go to the bathroom. I stare at my penis. I wait for the feeling of blood letting.

The butcher is waiting for me when I get out of the bathroom. The butcher is a bald man in a bloody apron. The butcher puts his arm around my shoulder. He has his sleeves rolled up and his forearm is thick and hairy and heavy upon my shoulder. His breath smells metallic like he had a mouthful of blood and he walks with me like that without saying anything, breathing heavily next to me as if he was preparing to say something. Nobody speaks to the butcher until first spoken to, so I walk nervously with him like that to the door, waiting for him to say something first before I can tell him that I have to go back to work. Then before I have opened the door to make my slow, thoughtless walk down Aisle 7, the butcher tells me to come and see him at the end of the day. The butcher tells me that he wants to give me a ride home. The butcher tells me that he has something that he wants me to do for him.

“Call it a favor,” the butcher says.

“Is that what it’s called,” I say.

The butcher doesn’t know how to laugh properly and it sounds more like he is clearing his throat. Then the butcher pats me heavily on the chest with his other hand and says, “I knew there was a reason why I liked you,” and then he hits me hard with a flat hand again in the back before he walks away.

I walk slowly down Aisle 7 back to my place in front of my register. I no longer have the energy to give women who look like my mother the wrong change and I stare at the side of Nicole’s head and I wonder what she would do if I died before the end of the day.

The rest of the day is spent in silence. Nicole is used to this and by the time I am leaving her, she tells me to cheer up; she tells me that things are never as bad as they seem; she tells me that she’ll call me later. I smile even though I know it looks like I’m not smiling and I say okay and then goodbye. I do not tell her about the butcher. I do not tell her how much he reminds me of the breather. I steal a pint of bourbon on my way out.

The butcher is waiting for me in his car. The butcher drives a white Cadillac. It has rims that spin even after the wheels have stopped. It is the whitest thing I have ever seen. I get in the car and immediately remind myself not to fasten my seat belt; such a thing might be taken as an insult to such a man. Then I notice that the butcher is still wearing his apron. Then I notice the gun in his lap. Then I notice the blood on the gun.

The butcher is smiling but he is silent. The butcher drives slow with the window down. His baldhead is beaded with sweat. His hands are hairy knuckles around the steering wheel. His lips are thick and fat and remind me of earthworms. “You know what the problem with people is,” he says.

“Vitamin B deficiency,” I say.

The butcher thinks I’m making a joke and tries to laugh again. “I knew there was a reason why I liked you,” he says. Then he turns to me and his tongue is so red I think it’s bleeding, and he says, “The problem with people is an appreciation for life.”

I do not know if he means that the problem is they don’t appreciate it or the problem is they do, but I do not ask which it is. Instead I ask him if I can have a cigarette and he says only if he can have one too.

I light a cigarette for him, careful not to leave too much saliva on it before I hand it to him. Then I light one for myself. Then we smoke as we drive slowly down a road I am familiar with. “Where are we going?” I ask.

The butcher is smiling when he tells me not to worry about that. Then he tells me to drink some of the bourbon I stole.

I do not ask him how he knew I stole some bourbon and instead I drink some bourbon and hand it to the butcher who also takes a drink and then I listen to him as he begins to describe his life to me. The butcher lives in an apartment that overlooks the city. You can see the whole city from where he lives, he tells me. All his walls are made of windows, he says. He has a maid who comes to clean them everyday, he says. His neighbors are lesbians, he says. He has the perfect life, he says. Then we stop in front of a house I am familiar with and he tells me that he needs me to do something for him.

“I don’t want to,” I say.

“But you have to,” he says.

“But I won’t,” I say.

“But you will,” he says.

And then he hands me the gun. And then he tells me not to take long.

I hold the gun in my hand. It is heavy and it is bloody and it feels good in my hand.

“It feels good, doesn’t it,” he says.

“Nobody can save her now,” he says.

“I guess you’re right,” I say, and then before I know what else to do, I am standing beside the car with the gun in my pocket and I am walking towards the door of the house and the door is unlocked, just like he said it would be and before I know what else I can do, I am opening the door.

The television is on but there is nobody there to watch it. There is an empty bottle of gin lying on its side on the floor in front of the couch. There is a light on in the kitchen. There are footsteps and the sound of water running.

I am standing in the doorway before I know what I am doing. I am staring at the back of Nicole’s head. I am staring at the gun that is in my hand. I am hoping that she won’t turn around. I fire two shots into her back and she slumps against the sink as if her body had suddenly decided to stop working. Then I go to the bathroom and lock the door. Then I close my eyes and feel like falling asleep and I think of what an odd sight it would be to find me asleep while sitting on the toilet.

When I leave the bathroom, the sink is still running but there is no body slumped upon it. There is no body. The television is still on though there is nobody to watch it. The door is still open.

I return to the Cadillac to find the butcher smoking another cigarette. I get in the car and I place the gun in my lap. Then I ask if it would be okay if I have another cigarette.

The butcher smiles. The butcher says, “Now don’t you feel better.”

I nod my head. I look at him as if I was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror while my heart was stopping. I say, “Don’t I look better,” and he laughs until he coughs and says, “That’s the spirit!” And then he lights me a cigarette before he drives me back to the store.

The store is closed but all the lights are on. The butcher is in the freezer. Mr. Binky is in his office counting money.

I go outside to have a cigarette. It is dark so I sit beneath a light post and look up at the light and at the way the smoke rises towards it. Then my phone rings and a woman breathes into my ear after I answer it. I tell her it’s not my fault but she only breathes heavier. I want to call Nicole. I want to call my mother. Then I smoke another cigarette before I go back into the store.

It is strange to be in a grocery store when it is empty. The lights seem brighter without people to populate it. I walk to the back with my head down.

I can hear the butcher humming. I can hear the thud of the cleaver. I stand in the doorway of the freezer.

The butcher is with two of his friends. They are all standing in front of a chopping block with their backs to me. They are all lifting cleavers before bringing them down with a thud. The butcher is saying, “I told you he would do it,” while the other two are laughing. An arm hangs from the block, sticking out from between their hips. A small hand at the end of the arm. Black nail polish at the end of each finger.

I am holding the gun in my hand before I know what I am doing. I fire two shots into the back of each of the butcher’s friends before I realize what I am doing. The butcher looks back at me with a smile. The butcher says with a shake of his head, “You’re the one who killed her.” Then he comes towards me, and from the space he vacates, I see Nicole’s face lying sideways on the chopping block. Her eyes are open. Her mouth is open. There is blood on her lips.

Then the butcher is standing in front of me and he takes the gun out of my hand and replaces it with his keys. “Here,” he says. “You earned it,” he says.

“But I didn’t save her,” I say.

The butcher smiles. The butcher wipes her blood from his hand onto his apron. The butcher says, “Nobody can save her now.”

Then I drive the butcher’s car to the butcher’s apartment and the walls are all windows just like the butcher said.

The building is made of many apartments and since the walls are all made of windows, it’s hard to find the doors. It’s hard to know which apartment is his. They are all empty except for one, which contains a maid who is vacuuming, and she sees me wandering around outside all the apartments and smiles at me and I smile back. Then she waves.

I wouldn’t know it was a door until she opens it. Then she is standing in front of me and I tell her that I’m lost. I tell her about the butcher. I show her his key.

“Of course,” she says.

“We all know the butcher,” she says.

Then I follow her up some stairs and I watch the way she walks up stairs until she stops while I am still staring at her ass and she turns around, and she smiles, and she whispers,

“You know he’s also a woman,” and I say, “No, I didn’t know that,” and she nods her head.

“He even likes to borrow my uniform,” she says.

And then we are in the butcher’s apartment and I am standing in the butcher’s kitchen and I think of the butcher, wearing a dress, standing at the sink and doing the dishes while breathing heavily into a phone.

The walls are all made of windows and there is a patio and we sit on patio chairs that overlook the city. The butcher’s lesbian neighbors join us, introducing themselves to me as “The Lesbians”. They are young and they are beautiful and they flirt with me with that playfulness that comes from not wanting anything else in the world but each other. The night has come and gone and the sun has started to rise. One of them smokes a cigarette while reading the paper. The other turns to me and says, “Isn’t it beautiful.”

The city is hills and homes and billboards. The city is the sunlight at an angle creating shadows coming from everything. The city is everything I could ever hope for.

“Yes, it is beautiful,” I say. The sun is in my eyes and I try to shade them with my hand so I can see her sitting and smiling in front of me. It is harder than I expect and tears come to my eyes. The sun is so bright, it hurts to look but I do not stop looking, but it’s so hard to keep looking.

Finally, I blink my eyes of tears until it is the only thing I can see, beautiful and bright, like it was the only thing left to see; a woman who will never love me smiling back at me, the sun rising over a city behind her, a grocery store upon a hill above us all, as if it was the end of a dream I never want to wake up from.

I smile as more tears come to my eyes. “It’s like a dream,” I say. Then I light a cigarette.

Then I turn off my cell phone.

That night I do not have a heart attack.