The fat Hereford steer entered the slaughterhouse, five paces behind his erstwhile feed-lot mate. As soon as he pushed his way through a thick curtain of hanging black plastic strips, his skull was adroitly sledge-hammered by a bare-chested Negroid giant, named “Hard” Thomas. The Hereford dropped to his knees and was dexterously hooked on his knee tendons and winched upside down into a throat-slitting position. This was quickly and quietly done so that the Hereford could then donate his vital fluids to a small red river sluicing down a small gutter in the cement floor. This rivulet was later magically converted to the highest grade fertilizer. (The corn grows better because of the blood of the steer that ate the corn.)
The overhead conveyor chain then moved the still-twitching Hereford first to the header who, with a razor-sharp knife the size of a Samurai sword, finished the beheading process. The head was dropped onto a rubber conveyor belt moving off to the right, perpendicular to the main carcass procession. This noggin was in turn processed into hot dogs and dog food. Next the Hereford was introduced to two skinners, one on either side, who had its hide off in 15 seconds flat. This was dropped down a chute into a vat of lye to remove the hair, then to the tannery, and then to Italy or Brazil to make the finest shoes or pocketbooks. Simultaneous to the hiding, the steer was gutted. With three dexterous swipes of a knife, the offal was dropped into a stainless-steel container which was then whisked off to be processed along with the head.
What was left of the carcass was cut asunder with a stainless-steel chain saw and entered, through another black plastic curtain, into a chiller which, within the course of 25 yards, dropped its temperatures to 38 degrees F. Then, both halves went to a phalanx of butchers who quickly dissected them into T-bone steaks, sirloin steaks, filet mignons, New York strips, skirt steaks (from the diaphragm), beef briskets, top rounds, bottom rounds, eye rounds, rump steaks, chuck steaks, neck meat for hamburgers, standing rib roasts, short ribs, ox-tail chunks for soup, beef shanks for osso bucco ... and an assortment of other viands. Thence these cuts were sent to the packagers who prettied them up in crushed ice and stretch wrap for the ravenous trenchermen in the finest restaurants and home kitchens of America.
By contrast, “Hard” Thomas has been a strict vegetarian since three days after he started his current job.
© Copyright, George W. Potts
