The sixth hour of hogs was rolling by me. Men were working on hogs all around me. The single track that held the hogs suspended curved in front of me and in back of me..

Neuhaus, Ronald L

English

The sixth hour of hogs was rolling by me. Men were working on hogs all around me. The single track that held the hogs suspended curved in front of me and in back of me...</p

Neuhaus, Ronald

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University (ISU)

Two-Twenty by Ronald L. Neuhaus THE sixth hour of hogs was rolling by me. Men were working on hogs all around me. The single track that held the hogs suspended curved in front of me and in back of me. Honed steel was slicing bloodless flesh, sending fat, feet and heads down chutes where more face-less hands would hold the blades to cut and further muti-late the animal for a waiting skillet. Far to my right, a saw was grating shrilly against a spine, splitting the hog into symmetrical halves; each hog now looking like a pale ink blot floating three feet above the floor. I stood on an iron grating and scraped the leaf lard from the hog in front of me. The fat fell, plopping on a steel pan beneath me. The piles of fat looked like wet cotton, yellowed and vibrating with the throb of the mo-tor that drove the hogs on the chain. They paid me two-twenty an hour. They needed the iron grates. The floor was covered with slippery flecks of fat, diseased and malignant guts and blood flowing twenty feet to a drain. Sometimes the blood thickened to black clots clogging the drain. Then one of the clean-up men had to squat beside the hole and jam his arm into the congestion. The semi-liquid would drop down with a sucking sound and the clean-up man would get back to sweeping the floor, his arm speckled with black clots and stained a violent crimson. Clean-up men got three cents an hour extra. My knife cut easily through the fat. It was as though I had passed the blade through air, that edge was so sharp. There was no odor I could smell. I didn't notice the smell nasally; I felt it stick to my throat and lungs. But breathing near a hog was an effort because I didn't breathe very deeply. I did once. It was like taking a deep breath over an unflushed urinal. [38] Winter, 1961 39 They paid part of the two-twenty for breathing. T h e hogs rolled by, hanging from hooks on the over-head chain. One hog every four feet. Every four feet for eight hours. When there wasn't a hog in front of me, I would stop for lunch. Thi r ty minutes later there would be a hog in front of me. Tha t chain stopped twice a day. Once for lunch, once at quit t ing time. Chain work. Chain gang. Me. Two-twenty an hour. I watched the man beside me. (My hands knew their work; I didn ' t need eyes to slice fat.) His face was brown and wrinkled with age, like a piece of bacon left too long in the pan. He stood and silently grasped a ligament in-side the hog. With one motion he severed it, his knife fol-lowing an unvarying arc. He worked ahead as far as the grate would let him. I counted to myself as he cut. — One, cut, step. Two, cut, step. Three, cut, step. Four, cut, step. T h e old man stood motionless, waiting for more liga-ments to come by. His arms hung loose at his sides. His head sagged and his back drooped, making him look like a clothed flesh question mark. He reached for another ligament. This time I looked away and counted. — One, cut, step. Two, cut, step. Three, cut, step. Four, cut, step. I looked at him again. H e had just finished making the last cut and stood lifeless as before. Two-twenty for him, with old-age benefits. Hogs didn' t go by the old man anymore. Tha t had stopped years ago. Only hanging ligaments went in front of him. I knew this as I reached for the fat passing in front of me. Two-twenty an hour. 

Two-Twenty

https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/bitstreams/a37c7205-915e-4e62-bb1d-9e7fc9620b45/download

Two-Twenty

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University (ISU)