Life in a Nutshell

The Butcher

cw: Candid farm talk, including the butchering / slaughtering process.

"Now hold this real tight and pull hard. Don't wiggle none, I don't want to chop yer fingers off."

My father had put his hand over mine as I was holding the chicken's head and stretching it over the bloody stump in our back yard.

"Daddy, I don't wanna."

Tears were starting to leak out, and I was whimpering and whining.

"Quit-cher belly-achin. I need help, and you're just the girl to help me. You won't be complaining none when yer momma makes soup and fried chicken will ya! Toughen up. This ain't no playin', this is where dinner's comin' from."

I was six years old.

"Okay daddy." So, I toughened up. I sniffed and sputtered and tightened my hand around that chicken's head and pulled.

"You can close yer eyes for the hard part, that's okay, just don't wiggle none."

Thwump. I heard my dad's sharp axe come down, and the chicken's head came loose in my hand. I dropped it to the ground and watched my dad whirl that chicken around in front of him a few times, wringing the blood from the body more quickly.

Blood spattered everywhere, and the cats were trying to lick up what they could, while staying out of the firing range.

He tossed the chicken to the ground, with the three others that had finally stopped moving. I stared at the headless body flopping and dancing around, partly enthralled and partly horrified.

"Does it hurt them?"

"Naww baby, I sharpened this old axe up real good. They didn't feel a thing. One chop and it was all over. What yer lookin' at right thar is just the dyin' quivers. Nerves, that's all it is. Every animal has those." My dad's southern drawl never completely went away.

This one flopped and jumped and ran around for a few minutes before its "dyin' quivers" were finally over. I held another three heads for my dad that day until he had what was needed for the next few months. These were fryin' hens for the chest freezer and a big old rooster for the stewpot.

Our coop was still full, so there would always be fresh eggs. But the big butcherin' day would be in the fall, before winter hit.

Dad was the son of a Southern Ohio sharecropper. They were very close to Kentucky. His dad still farmed with draft horses up until he could afford a tractor in the early 50's. He was a smart kid but had dyslexia before anyone knew what that was. Everyone just thought he was dumb, because he had a hard time spelling, reading and writing.

In 1957 he was sixteen years old and in his second year of eighth grade. That was enough for him. He said, "that's enough of this bullshit," and quit school.

My grandfather told him, that was fine, but he had to get a job. No son of his was going to be a lazy no-good sum-bitch. So, dad got a job; at the slaughterhouse down by the county line. He was only sixteen and they handed him a pitchfork for defense, and a sawed off .22-caliber rifle.

The cattle would be crazed by fear and the stench of blood when they were herded down the chute to the small concrete killing floor. They were ready to fight for their lives. Dad had to defend himself with the pitchfork and look for the best shot to drop the cow. He got really good at it.

Too good.

They'd send terrified animal after animal down the chutes for him to dispatch, and he took them all down. Day after day, month after month. Year after year. Nobody else lasted as long in that job as he did.