It was 35 years later and Harvey found himself still living in Hickory. Although it had grown larger over the years, it was still a considerably small town, growing at a much slower pace than the towns and cities popping up around it. It had a town square complete with a marble statue of its founder, a grade school and a high school, a pizzeria and a run-down library. Jackals Tavern still stood out on Steppes Road, although it had changed hands several times over the years and was now called Sugar Mellons Bar and Grill. Hickory also had a small grocery that boasted its own butcher shop called Meat King Meats. Harvey Bangor was the butcher.  The owner, Mack Mitchum, bought meat and poultry from the area farmers, and Harvey had apprenticed as the butcher since he’d dropped out of high school at aged fourteen to take care of his father, who had long-since drank himself out of work. Robert Bangor had finally pickled himself to death in the fall during one of Hickory’s harsh winters when Harvey was seventeen. Mack kept Harvey on at the shop, allowing him more and more responsibility. Despite Harvey’s young age his meat cuts were sharp, he kept the shop neat and clean, he showed up early and stayed late, he followed orders and he caught on quickly. Mack chose to ignore the reek of mint gum and mouthwash that covered the alcohol smell, and until recently his dependency on Harvey had been utter and absolute for the last twenty years.

But Harvey had met a woman. Sheila Asbury had caught Harvey’s eye down at Sugar Mellons on one of his nightly binges. In the eleven months since then she had moved in with him and was, by all accounts, taking him for everything he had and some things he didn’t.  Sheila kept Harvey a nervous wreck. She often asked for grocery money and borrowed the car, and then she disappeared for two or three nights in a row, forcing Harvey to walk to work. He chose to ignore the rumors that she was living it up in the next town with a vagrant named Matthew or a barkeep named Jesse. Either way, Sheila’s wanderings became more frequent, Harvey’s savings account more meager, and his drinking more intense. While he still showed up to work, he was usually late and had long since stopped trying to hide the smell of alcohol with mints or mouthwash. His meat cuts were sloppy, and his attitude worse. He had begun to talk to himself, although many customers were sure the curses he was fond of uttering were aimed at them. They had begun complaining, and some had gone so far as to drive to the next town to purchase their meat at the fancy new Piggly Wiggly. Mack had warned Harvey, pleaded with him, reasoned with him and threatened him, to no avail. Finally, Mack had hired an apprentice in hopes that younger competition might be a threat to Harvey and get him to straighten up his act. It didn’t work. Harvey fumbled his way around the shop and freezer while the nervous apprentice cleaned up after him and tried to stay out of his way.

On this particular morning, Harvey was worse than usual. He had started drinking heavily over at Sugar Mellon’s as soon as he got off work the night before, then sloshed home and continued to drink from his own personal stash of whiskey. His intentions were to simply sit and drink and wait for her to come home, maybe pass out in the bed that still smelled of her perfume and shampoo. Instead, he sat in the tattered leather recliner in the corner, and hovered somewhere in between sleep and wakefulness, sometimes jerking blearily awake when the headlights of a passing car turned onto his street, hoping those lights would turn into his driveway, meaning that his Sheila was home.  She never arrived though, and this was her thirteenth day gone, the longest since she’d started pulling her disappearing acts, and he found himself more than once wondering if this time she was really gone for good.

When the alarm clock in the other room went off at 6:00 a.m. Harvey was already awake, or what passed for awake in his foggy mix of alcohol and fatigue and sadness and anger. His eyes were red as sirens, his hair as oily as the local river, and he smelled of cigarettes and stale sweat and booze. He sat stupidly in the chair and waited for the alarm to wind itself down. He pushed the weight of his body up, and zig-zagged his way slowly to the bathroom. He stared at himself for a long time in the mirror, not noticing the three days growth of stubble or the cracked lips hiding fuzzy teeth, but only staring deep into his own red eyes. Those eyes told him that today was the day. He would go to work, yes, and he would try to get through the day without getting fired. He would watch the front door of the butcher shop for Sheila to walk in. If she didn’t, he would come from work tonight, load his gun, sit back in that tattered old chair that now was the only reliable thing in his world. She had til midnight to come home. If she didn’t, he would blow his brains all over that piece of shit recliner and on the walls behind it. That was it. Decision made.

Suddenly Harvey felt noticeably better. Not better enough to brush his hairy teeth or wash his oily hair, but good enough to take the few steps to the toilet, and unleash a noisy stream of piss in its general direction. Tonight, one way or another, this ordeal would be done. Either she would come back to him, and they’d work this thing out, or he’d give his old soul a strong nudge on over into the mystery and let God sort it all out. Harvey splashed some water on his face and washed his hands before heading for the kitchen in search of his house and shop keys. After a somewhat lengthy search (he hadn’t even bothered to remove them from the doorknob during his drunken entrance the night before), he let himself out the back door, and began the five minute walk to work. As mad as it made him when Sheila took the car and didn’t come back, he was still grateful to live within walking distance of both his job and his work. It had occurred to him on more than one occasion that if the bar was further, he might not be on the verge of losing his job. On the other hand, if his job were further away, he could just drink himself into a stupor all day every day, until the money ran out, or until his liver failed, whichever came first. Not that any of that mattered now. Either his Sheila would stay home, or he’d make the decision easier on them both.

Arriving at the Meat King, Harvey was glad to find that he was the first one there. Used to be, he’d be the only one there most of the time, but lately there was always somebody else there. More often, two somebody’s: his boss Mack, and - as Harvey liked to refer to him - “that new whiny little snot-nosed quote-unquote assistant” Joe. It was too crowded, in Harvey’s opinion, and he felt self-conscious. He knew he was being watched and as he knew Mack was hemorrhaging the faith in him he’d had for all these years. Sad, Harvey knew, but dammit, he just couldn’t help himself. Sheila was the best and the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and he was as addicted to her as he was to whiskey.

Harvey stepped inside the front door of the shop, barely hearing it squeak closed behind him, or the little bell on the door announce his arrival. He stood for a moment, exhausted, and contemplated just walking back home and making the date with his shotgun a little earlier than he’d planned. Then he heard the door squeak again, and that damned happy little bell jingle, and he turned to find Mack stepping inside, swatting away the clinging smoke from the cigarette he’d just stubbed out in the sandbox outside the door. Most of the world had taken Big Brother’s suggestion that they stop smoking, but that message hadn’t reached most of Hickory as of yet, and certainly not the employees of the Meat King. They all smoked at least a pack a day, and the cigarette-butt packed sandboxes outside both the front and back doors of the Meat King proved it. Harvey stepped aside to allow his boss entry, but it was also an attempt to avoid Mack’s nose, which, over the years had been well-trained to sniff out even the faintest scent of meat turning bad.

“Mornin”, Harvey croaked out, avoiding Mack’s eyes as he turned and started to head toward the back of the shop.

“Don’t ‘Mornin’ ME”, Mack shot back, clearly pissed off about something.

Harvey turned, and waited to hear what the problem was. He figured it was something he’d done, as it was a rare moment to see Mack angry. Harvey had been bearing witness to those moments more and more often these days.

“When you left here last night,” Mack began in a tight voice, “I walked back there to check on an order, and the kitchen was a mess, Harvey. A MESS.” His face was red as he took a step toward Harvey. “The Fleetwood wasn’t cleaned, the floor wasn’t mopped. Are you trying to make me lose my license here?”

Harvey made eye contact with Mack for just a moment, and saw a man torn between being his friend and the man who was his boss. The man who was his friend was trying to be understanding of his situation, but the boss, well the boss was tired of putting up with the unreliable employee that was costing him money.

Shame caused Harvey’s face to flush red.

“Man, I’m sorry,” Harvey mumbled, rubbing his hand thoughtfully over his stubble. He didn’t make any excuses, but only mumbled, “I’ll clean it right now.”

He made a quick and cowardly escape to the back room, knowing he hadn’t risen to the situation, hadn’t explained or apologized enough. He half expected Mack to follow him, to maybe rant more, or just go ahead and fire him. He didn’t. Harvey sensed that Mack stayed standing where he was, probably trying to decide what to do, and then he heard him sigh, and head to his office. The door slammed, popped open again when the latch didn’t catch, and then slammed again, followed by a “God DAMMIT!” in Macks muffled voice.

Harvey was grateful to avoid further confrontation, and he decided that the least he could do for Mack was to make the shop sparkle, and give him one last day of working with the Harvey that used to be. He looked at the clock. Still an hour before opening. He’d make a pot of coffee and get the place cleaned up, and get started on the morning’s meat orders. As tired as he felt, he’d have to keep that coffee flowing to make it through the day, but he owed Mack and hated that he’d let him down so often over the last few months.

The Fleetwood #32 heavy duty meat slicer was the most expensive piece of equipment in the shop. Harvey was as familiar with the parts and operation of this machine as he was his own body. He was particularly proud that not even Mack knew the ins and outs of this machine like Harvey did. And Mack was right, the machine was the biggest mess it had ever been, barely clean enough to pass inspection most days lately, last night Harvey hadn’t even bothered to wipe it down at all, and it was covered with chunks of meat and the brown remains of drying and flaking blood. Even the counter beneath it wasn’t clean. Coffee brewing, Harvey washed his hands, donned his apron, hairnet and rubber gloves, and gathered the cleaning supplies he’d need to clean it.

Ten minutes later, Harvey was still scrubbing, using a tiny tooth-brush-like steel wool cleaning gadget to get down into the nooks and crannies of the thing, becoming more disgusted with himself as he glanced down at the bucket of cleaning solution on the counter, becoming filthier by the minute. After he cleaned the machine with this bucketful, he’d have to make yet another batch, to clean off the dirty film left behind from this round.

Harvey dropped the filthy brush down into the murky water just as he realized he hadn’t released the blade guard. He reached back behind the machine to hit the release, and the arm popped up exposing the blade beneath. He sighed as the light revealed some less than appetizing dried-up meat residue inside the blade protector. Harvey cursed to himself, looking down into the nasty concoction in the orange bucket, and then grimaced as he reached down into it to retrieve the steel wool brush. He began to scrub the arm, little chunks of dripping wet meat periodically falling into the bucket beneath. One particular spot required harder scrubbing, and Harvey’s steel wool had just about worn out its usefulness. He pushed harder anyway, and suddenly the little brush snapped, shooting its head back behind the Fleetwood. Harvey cursed. Tiredly, he wiped his hands on his apron, and bent down to see if he could see underneath the meat cutter, to see if he could find the brush head.

He could see it, barely, hiding on the counter, all the way back behind the cutter. No way he could reach that by going underneath, but it looked like he could get to it if he could reach the back of the cutter from the top. He looked around for a footstool, found an old rickety one he thought might hold him, and placed it in front of the counter. He gingerly stepped up on the stool, testing its support. It groaned a little under his weight, but Harvey pretended not to hear as he pressed up against the edge of the counter. He leaned forward as far as possible, the counter cutting into his belly. He reached with his right hand behind the massive meat cutter and held onto the lever on the meat grinder with his left. He pushed himself forward, reaching with two fingers behind and then underneath the cutter. He could feel the steel wool on the brush, and scissored his first two fingers back and forth, trying to pick it up. He had a precarious grip on it when two bad things happened. First, with a loud crack, the wooden footstool began to give way beneath his feet. Second, Harvey himself began to slide backwards, losing his grip on the steel wool brush, and putting too much weight on his left hand, twisting the wrist. In that instant, Harvey grabbed for the rounded part of the meat cutter, and in doing so, released the safety, which unlocked the rotating blade, which was still uncovered. The stool splintered beneath him, and Harvey began to fall backwards. In trying to catch himself, he reached out, grabbing for anything that could stop his fall. His right hand slid underneath the meat cutters blade. As he fell backwards, Harvey looked up and saw what appeared to be one of his fingers spinning above him. Then he hit the concrete floor and didn’t see anything at all.

Next Chapter: 2.