Its funny how time bends events and solid memories wobble, distort and interchange... how things that were once positive sureties can melt into doubt and hesitant what if’s... but some things, like the aroma of favourite food or a whiff of sweet perfume or conversely other, less dulcet, offensive smells can bring memories back so vividly its almost like an action replay of associated events played out in front of your mind's eye.
This happened to me recently on a warm, sunny day as I passed an open fronted butcher's shop in Manor Park and the sudden throat constricting waft of raw meat that assaulted my senses brought back memories that almost had me reeling and wobbly, unsteady on my feet as if I'd slipped back through the years somehow like Dr. bleeding Who… to a particular time in my life, a youngster on the threshold of independence and adulthood and all the things that go with it… and on reflection this had to qualify as the worst job I’ve ever done… thanklessly working as a reluctant, part-time butcher's boy at a less than salubrious 'meat emporium' on the Barking Road in East Ham, just a stones' throw from West Ham United's football ground. With hindsight and looking back without the benefit of the ubiquitous pair of rose tinted spectacles, I think I did the right thing in the end, even though the ambivalent mists of time and a sudden explosion of self righteousness might have obscured some of the subtleties of the situation.
It was a 6.30am start on a Saturday, right through to 5.30pm, so I always ended up missing the home games, although if I opened the alleyway door from my back-room work station I could clearly hear the North Bank spectators' cheers of joy and sighs of disappointment as the game flowed and ebbed. Add an evening or two till 8pm straight from school and factor in all week stints during the school holidays and it was a lot of work. Depressing and soul eroding work, but work all the same. I was aware my dad was at that time on strike from his job, dodging truncheons on the picket line, with no income for the foreseeable, and mum was working her arse off doing school dinners at a comprehensive up the road, so I slogged away at it diligently and without complaint. Although conscious I had to contribute a third of my part-time earnings to the family coffers, I still managed to stash quite a bit away, a treasure-chest holiday fund that my parents assured me was all mine to do with as I pleased. I’d done my bit… and I was at an age where exams and school were about to be done and dusted, and a vast open future with a mind-fuck labyrinth of options was unfolding before me. But at that point my over riding concern was the delicious prospect of a long, hot summer ahead and friends, art, music, live bands and semi-selfish nascent hedonism were slowly becoming the very centre of my being… and on top of all that youthful blossoming came girls… birds, reenies, the fairer sex… virtually anything loosely termed female was suddenly taking up a lot more of my young head space - and hairy palm space too if I'm brutally honest - than I'd ever, ever bargained for… so when all of my mates were out and about having the times of their lives and telling tales of beach parties, surfing, drunkenness and sewing wild oats, the thought of working like a Trojan through an entire summer, especially doing this unsavoury, smelly, sweaty, meaty, greasy, laaaaaardy kind of work, despite the circumstances, was not that high on my adolescent list of priorities.
Now I'm no tree hugger, vegetarian or bleeding heart of any sort, but one meaty whiff of the downstairs back room at the butcher shop on a hot, clammy day would absolutely turn me over, and every nauseated part of me just wanted to jack the job in, without having to bear the old fashioned Catholic guilt-monkey clinging to my back with razor sharp claws. I wanted to simply ditch the innate, over-riding work ethic, just for a while, for a paltry few weeks and drop out… sod off to meet some mates down in Cornwall and actually give myself some space to enjoy the advancing summer with all its attendant free times and good times. Yet all the while I knew this desire to get away was really just a repressed rebellious concept, a half baked idyllic notion bouncing round in my head whenever I felt low. I mean… as if I'd really act on a semi opaque reverie, something hovering tantalisingly on the horizon, like a mirage of some distant oasis you could never quite reach. Yeah. Fucking dream on Mr Mac...
Recalling those days now, I really don't know how I stomached the work at all. Shitty chores like scaling off the ingrained blood and guts from the chopping blocks with steel bladed brushes, acerbic detergent and pure elbow grease… and rigorously cleaning the huge walk-in meat freezers and fridges, big as train carriages. I had to empty one whole freezer into another, and part thaw the empty one out and then scrape all the blood and lard off the walls, floor, ceiling and doors using boiling water, industrial soap, wire brushes and paint scrapers. With the steaming hot water and the freezer on the thaw, the frozen gunk starts to revert to liquid and turns treacly sticky and incredibly smelly and it gets everyfuckingwhere… in your hair, down your neck, inside your shirt and in your shoes… IN YOUR SHOES! And the eye-watering stench of old meat, fat and the metallic tang of blood seemed to stay with you and on you for days and days, no matter how much Lifebuoy you scrubbed yourself raw with. I’d be thrashing the loofah about in the bath on Saturday night, like a frenetic Lady Macbeth on a frenzied sugar rush with a bad case of OCD, getting busy, busy, busy with the soap on a fucking rope. Out damned spot!!! OUT!
I remember unloading the carcasses off refrigerated trucks … huge, Francis Bacon-esque sides of beef, dozens of them swaying on steel hooks like rows of executed innocents after a third world fascist atrocity… halves of fucking cows, with their sawed off and broken rib cages exposed, revealing massive empty chest cavities, slathered in a marbled, slippery residue of blood and subcutaneous lard… Then there was the rest of Old McDonald’s farmyard to contend with. Whole sheep, halved sheep, neatly severed limbs of sheep. Entire pigs and bristly bits of pig… heads complete with rheumy lifeless eyes and long ginger eyelashes, pig tails, shite covered trotters, whole ears, strung on cords… nothing wasted… oxtails, skinned and dark red, threaded with thick veins and membranes… boxes and boxes of gelatinous offal… the kidneys, livers, lungs, tripe, eyelids, lips and arseholes floating in a dark, burgundy marinade of viscous, part congealed blood… which brings me nicely to the anonymous mince, the faggots, the sausages, the burgers. I won't go into what they put into the 'Home Style' bangers, but suffice to say an ungodly combination of Henry Wintermans cheroot ash, fatty cuts of meat teetering on the very cusp of the dustbin, packets of out of date Paxo and the mincing machine operator’s peculiar nasal solids had a large part to play in the sausage’s unique, home made texture and fulsome flavour and it put me off toad-in-the-hole for fucking years. Rows of scrawny chickens, scores of them, curiously purplish, hanging like old geezer's scrotums, and of course the inevitable Christmas turkeys which all had to be plucked and gutted… racks of musky, reeking game and fowl of all sorts and hues, plus large, cut down plastic drums of cloudy brine with fat, bloated legs of pork and colossal ribs of beef lolling around in their saline bath like drowned bodies in the shallows, and lastly, finally, the rabbits... the fucking rabbits."Sorting the rabbits" was a plum job. My arse. My task after delivery was to drag all the rabbit sacks to the back room, ten or so, and take the pre-stunned, supposedly dead creatures out of the bag, onto the block and prepare them for skinning (another soul destroying job)… I had to un-sack them while armed with a big wooden mallet, on standby, just in case one of the bounders was still alive and made a bolt for freedom when the bag was opened. To my horror, hard-nut survivor rabbits happened more often than I would have liked so my job included strict instructions to swiftly deal with any rogue bunnies by dishing out fast and hefty cracks of the mallet as required… which was all well and good when confined to the solitude of the dark and cave-like downstairs back room, well out of the sight and earshot of customers in the politely smiling, helpfully obsequious, scrubbed up shop.
But that was all about to change one unseasonably hot, late April Saturday afternoon. On rabbit duty once again, the first nine sacks went through without incident and as I gingerly opened up the last sack and got a handful of fur to remove the rabbits, it struck me that there was only one rabbit in the sack - there was usually at least two, sometimes up to four. As I dragged him out of the bag by the back legs, I saw that this bugger was massive with a dirty white coat and very well muscled. He weighed about the same as three normal rabbits. This Incredible Hulk of bunnies was stock still and limp as I pulled him completely out of the bag, when suddenly his leg muscles bunched and twitched as the light hit his big demonic red eyes. They opened frighteningly wide and his whole body suddenly tensed and then jack knifed in my hand… he was so strong he simply leapt from my grip, straight up in the air, like a sodding salmon. And the teeth! Bloody great gnashers in a big bony head… think a coked up and wired Vinnie Jones in white greasepaint with long ears and the raving hump. Spit was flying from this thing, long incisors gnashing for my hands, the animal making an unholy noise, like a cross between a pig's squeal and a terrier's high pitched snarl, and I was suddenly scared of it! Shocked, I dropped the mallet and then tried to catch this acrobatically spinning monster in mid air, but I failed… he bounced off my forearms, thudded backwards onto the chopping block and with a mad scrabble of claws on slick wood he twisted and leapt up again, running up the short stairs and out the doorway to the shopfloor.
Without giving it a second thought I grabbed the mallet and chased the animal up the stairs, the daylight bathed shopfront and illuminated display cabinets promising a route of salvation for the fucker. With me hot on his fluffy white tail we both burst into the shop and straight through a densely packed queue of Saturday afternoon customers… the poor sod didn't know what way to run, darting around and between the sea of legs, the shoppers horrified by the scuttling animal bashing into their shins. Some of the crowd started screaming hysterically, a confused, frightened child got knocked over and stepped on by the jumping feet of the adults, which made matters worse and my boss Randy was suddenly waving a cleaver about and shouting at me, "Mac! Sort that cunting rabbit out now or you're fucking sacked! NOW! D'you hear me boy?" In a state of panic I duly swung the mallet and missed, the heavy wood crashing into the sawdusted floortiles. “Excuse me Missus!” I cried as I lunged again between two fear-frozen women in the queue and this time clobbered the rabbit across the neck. Stunned, it floundered for a second or two, running round in a circle with its head on the tiles, people jerking their feet out of the way, hopping around the beastie like epileptics at a ceilidh, but then it suddenly rallied, got its legs under itself and surged for the open glass door out onto the sunny Barking Road, his paws cutting an arc through the sawdust on the floor. At the very last second one of the junior butchers, Randy’s son, came to his senses, came fast round his counter, stepped in and blocked the rabbit’s exit with a peach of a kick and I managed to catch up to it and deliver a final skull crushing coup de grace. Splat. Finito. Consider it 'sorted' guv. Shwarzennegger rabbit is terminated… hasta la vista babee? I'll be beck? Fuck you, no chance sunshine.
The ensuing silence after the panicked screams and the absurd Tex Avery chase fracas was truly deafening… the beast was deceased, deader than dead with a flattened head. Spattered pennies of blood were soaking quietly and coverty into the wood shavings. In the rabbit’s otherwise still body, one long, white, back leg twitched obscenely, the sole movement in an aural vacuum pierced only by the hollow, tick-tock cadence of the big clock over the counter, marking the impossibly pregnant moments away, a metronomic accompaniment to the perpetual, monotone chorus of the cold and relentless humming of the fridges.
And there was I, wincing before the mob, standing over the hapless victim... me, the wild-eyed culprit, blood sullied murder weapon in hand, sweating like a rapist on the run. Everybody regarding me with utter disgust, some slack jawed in disbelief, a host of accusatory eyes boring into mine. I suddenly felt awful...
"Mammy! Mammy! He killed the fucking bunny! He killed the fucking bunny!" an incredulous small boy blurted into the silence, jumping up and down on the spot as if attached to a bungee, before wailing when said mammy suddenly slapped him hard round the ear for his saucy language, the crack of her gold ringed hand on his face like a gunshot. "Waaaaaaa! But mammy, he killed the fucki…" Whack! Another crack of the hand. An old geezer with a skimpy roll up attached to his lip, dressed in flat cap and brown mac, despite the clement weather, stepped forward and spat through the damp and brown stained dog end, "Gaaatcha, if I was 20 years younger you fuckin' cowson!!” My eyes were transfixed to the still smoking fag-butt waggling up and down as he berated me. I couldn’t tear them away. “You didn't have t’kill the rabbit didja? There's littluns in 'ere, wimmin and all…" he continued, his raspy voice melting into the general vox pop consensus of cuntdom to which I was now firmly consigned… "Brutal, so brutal…", "Disgusting behaviour…", “Callous bastard…” chimed dour, faceless voices from the tutting, jostling queue. I glanced around and caught the guv’nor giving me evil daggers - if looks could kill I’d be on display in the window, spatchcocked on a steel tray, with a packet of sage and onion jammed up my ‘arris and an apple in my gob, and he’s issuing tirades of the vilest threats, flinging obscenities like thunderbolts, despite the onlookers. Even the sniggering, conniving apprentices are suddenly cowed and dumbstruck at his aggressive stance... Safe to assume my future at ‘Randy & Son – Butchers of Distinction’, was well and truly fucked. Down the dustpipe. With nothing to lose, I reasoned now was the time to pipe up and defend myself…
Still crouched, I turned to face the crowd full on, and with salty tears stinging my eyes and crimson with embarrassment I cleared my throat to speak. "You people… What was I supposed to do? Catch it in a net and cuddle it? Come on! Its my job. Its a butchers shop for fucks sake… its meat… the rabbit is meat! Randy’s here killing the meat and you're all here to buy the sodding meat for your fucking Sunday roasts tomorra! Cop yourselves on!" I half screamed, half stammered to the shocked queue, recoiling before me… "And what if the rabbit had got out on the road, run straight out in the traffic? There'd have been an accident, that's what… someone coulda been killed. Yeah. Fucking killed… arseholes!” Indignantly I straightened up, and suddenly thought I saw things more clearly, and uttered, “What am I doing here? Sod this for a game of soldiers! Sod it all!" and I threw the mallet at the counter, the heavy wood spinning through the air, end over end, knocking over a lack lustre and unimaginatively stacked display of Oak tinned ham, the clatter of metal on the ceramic tiled floor startling and several customers literally jumped at the loud, sudden noise, nerves frayed by the whole incident. "You can put that in your collective pipe and smoke it, wankers, the lot of you. You should all pay a visit to the Beckton slaughterhouse, the fucking glue factory, see what really happens."
Mustering the last ragged shred of dignity I had, I turned back to look at Randy, my guv'nor, his straw boater askew on his florid, bald pate, still gripping his cleaver, blood pressure off the scale, his burly frame shuddering with anger, fucking apoplectic. I didn’t care now. Not a jot. Not any more. "Know what Randy? Before you burst an artery or have a fucking seizure, you should know you simply ain't having the pleasure of sacking me today… no, you're fucking not, ‘cos I’m in first... OK? You can shove this shitty job mate. I’ve been working my nuts off for months here and I’ve been saving - got it all stashed away - and I think I’ll be off for a proper summer this year. I deserve it after all this bollocks. I'll be beaching it in Cornwall, learning surfing, eating fucking pasties and drinking scrumpy and you can fucking rot in here with all your dead meat and kamikaze rabbits. And I can’t sodding wait… My dad will come by tonight for me wages. You owe me for the week, fair and square. Just don't mess him about or there'll be murders." I bent and picked up the now unmoving furry corpse by the scruff and walked out to the backroom to hang the rabbit up with his dead compadres, without a look left or right, knowing this was going to be my last few minutes in this poxy place… and I was glad too. The rabbits were sorted, well and truly, and now nobody could say I didn't finish the job. Not today. And not one of my colleagues came out back after me either, to commiserate, applaud or decry… not a single one. Tossers.
I washed my hands and face at the steel sink, threw my overalls and work shirt in the bin, shrugged on a clean, checked button-down and my red Harrington and walked out… past the now silently glaring guv'nor, past the wide-eyed apprentices and the still aghast, gossiping gaggle of customers, straight out the door, shaking the stained sawdust off my boot soles as I went, leaving all the carcasses, the blood, guts, grease and scraping and cleaning of butcher's blocks and stinking mortuary-like freezers behind… and as I left I could feel a big smile coming on as if I’d reclaimed my soul… I felt relieved, restored, brand new, clean, light as a feather, a brilliantly incessant Undertones tune buzzing in my head... man, I felt happy.
Grin in place, I walked in the glorious early afternoon sun, almost bowling along, people somehow sub-consciously clearing a path for me, hands deep in my Sta-prest pockets, a spring in my monkey boots, a fashionably discrete flash of white socks above them. A nice, uninterrupted stroll up the dingy Barking Road to the dingy Greengate beer garden where some of my old mates were having a dingy late season, pre-match pint. Big hugs, handshakes, friendly arm punches and assorted claps on the back welcomed me. Yeah, al fresco afternoon drinking in Plaistow among a motley collection of mod crops, suedeheads and rockabilly flat tops. Nice. When I think back, this sepia tinged snapshot of a run down boozer, on its grimy corner plot of Greengate Street and the Barking Road was certainly ditchwater dingy, right enough… with a capital D… but at the same time, just then, with the sun shining and a fresh breeze blowing through the new leaves on the exhaust clogged and deformed plane trees, strangely beautiful. Nothing could cloud my buoyant mood that afternoon and I knew it would be bliss to sink a few cold, and wholly illegal, 50 pence pints of gassy Long Life with a few much missed pals, have a few laughs and a long, leisurely think about what to do with myself next. No hurry. Cornwall would still be there tomorrow. And the cherry on the cake would be West Ham winning the game. Wallop! Yes… At the very least there'll be no more killing rabbits with a fucking mallet. And definitely no more butchers boy… I mean, who'd be one?
© Words - Paul McEvoy/ ZANI Media
