When my dad and his brother Fuzz go to the woods together, they come back with a string of squirrels. My dad cleans the squirrels of their little jackets and trims them of heads and feet, then pops them into freezer bags for later. For what later, I wonder, since my mother is never going to cook these squirrels and we are not going to eat these squirrels, and since my dad would almost starve I think if someone did not cook for him, the freezer fills up with squirrel meat.
But the freezer is always so full of meat! My father drives an hour away to a place where he knows a butcher who will give him a whole side of beef for a very good deal, and so we drive there, and I play in the front of the shop even though the store is closed and the lights are mostly off inside all the meat cases, while my dad loads very many coolers with very many white packages of meat. At the front of the shop, there is a little cow holding a chalkboard in his hoof that has the specials for the day. I erase the specials and draw on the cow board. I draw a cow that looks similar to the cow holding the board, and then a little mouse in an outfit, and then a squirrel carcass, but there isn’t enough room to fit the squirrel carcass onto the little chalkboard so I take the chalk to the floor of the shop and there I paint my masterpieces, on the floor of the shop until my dad comes in and snatches me up, and that is that last time we get a deal on a side of beef!
That meat fills up the freezer, but also we eat the meat every day, so there is a beef theme in our lives that season, whereas mostly there is a chicken theme or a fried-vegetable theme. My mother buys a grinder and then grinds the meat because meat that is loose is more versatile than meat that is in a large chunk, it seems, now made loose it can become burgers or chili or taco meat or sloppy joes or burritos or patty melts or spaghetti sauce or Swedish meatballs or can be helped with a box of helper. No one it seems is allowed to tire of the beef season. Except now my father is gone almost all weekend fishing and going to the woods, and he comes home with the fish and cleans many fish and puts them into the freezer bags, and then comes home with the string of squirrels and cleans the squirrels and puts them in the freezer bags, and not only is our freezer full now of meat and fish and squirrels, so full there is almost no room for the many ice cube trays that are necessary to make the sugary ice teas that everyone consumes daily in enormous quantities, but mom-mom’s freezer is also full of meat, even though she eats like a tiny bird, so she is not going to help make a dent in all that meat. And my mother is getting a little bit tired of coming in from her part-time job as a secretary and having to cook all that meat and sometimes it just seems like no one is happy.
While my mom prepares the meat, she watches Donahue. Donahue is the most boring of all shows, so I must flee. My father is not home yet, because he is on a new work schedule that means he has to be up at 4 a.m. and out of the house to go get in the trucks and drive the trucks all over till very late in the evening and sometimes he is not home even in time for M*A*S*H, and so he sleeps with the radio on all night, because somehow this helps to either make him sleep or helps to keep him from sleeping too much so it’s possible to wake up so early to work so long? I’m not sure. But the radio is always on in their bedroom, and sometimes, in the daytime, to escape the sound of Donahue I hide in the gap between the big bed and the wall, and the music is playing southern nights, or hunka hunka burnin’ love, and even with this contemporary soundtrack, I am able to imagine this gap between the bed and the wall, where I am nestled in shag carpeting is actually a straw bunk inside a snowbound cabin, and I am an orphan who has wandered in the wilderness and is starving and suffering from fever, but I have been found nearly perished in the snow by an unknown couple who are benevolent and willing to save me from scarlet fever via nourishing broths and they are quite happy to raise me in their home. There is only bear meat to eat of course, but it doesn’t matter, because I can’t eat any solid foods due to the scarlet fever, I can only have someone spoon me broth. In my mind I picture myself partly as a girl, and partly as a little fox. Sometimes, I hide there in the shag rug, for some time, until someone notices I am missing and comes and accuses me of something, because why would I hide there in the bedroom, in a dark trench between the paneling and the comforter if I hadn’t done something and wasn’t awaiting retribution? I just want to be alone in my straw pallet, with my restorative broth, and my little pioneer fox family for a little longer while my mom is watching Donahue and cooking dinner. But then the supper hour dawns and all are summoned to the loose meat, and the table that is covered forever and always with the oilcloth with giant pink roses.
And my brother still escorts mom-mom to the table through our two rooms, but now mostly he leaves and does not stay at the table. As often as not, no matter the form, the loose meat is served on white paper plates, layered with white paper towels, which are there to soak up the extra loose meat grease. You scoop the loose meat (as if for taco) right off the paper toweling, and you scoop a charred lump of formed loose meat (as if for burger) off the paper toweling, etc. When eating the loose meat, you eat also very much paper towel. Chili and other sorts of moister loose meats are served in their cooking pots.
Sometimes, instead of hiding in the trench in the bedroom, I hide under the table, under the tent of the oilcloth. Under the table you can see that the table is actually made of wood and is sort of fancy as it is Ethan Allen from the early American collection which is my dad’s favorite collection of furnishings in dark walnut wood. Under the table you can also see where my brother has carved many things in retribution against the table, and drawn many pictures of violent retribution being enacted on members of the family.
I can still hear Donahue from under the table, though, and so sometimes I must just go to the out of doors and swing on the little red swing and play with the small dog who is getting a little mangy from his grass disease. One time I come in from playing in the out of doors, and my dad is home from work, and my mom is in the kitchen with him and someone has cooked a squirrel. I don’t know who, my dad I guess? Or my mom for some reason? My mom is standing with her arms crossed. My dad tries to get me to eat the squirrel. I nibble on the small squirrel limb, which looks like a tiny drumstick by the time it is cooked in the pan. Stringy. Oily. Gamy. I hurl the little drumstick. I will not be eating any more of that squirrel. What kind of person is the kind of person who hunts squirrels? A sick, backwards person.
Okay, okay, no one’s making you eat the squirrel. My mother looks smug and victorious. My father looks wounded. My brother is nowhere to be seen.