All Dressed Up Like a Dog's Dinner

 Frederick turned to page 43 of  “Butchery Basics.” Chapter 3: Lamb. Finger and thumb shaped prints of  blood sullied the top corner.

‘Okay, Henry that’s the dressing completed.’

Frederick glanced at the Gles storage box; one of six recently bought from IKEA – bloody good value at a quid each – filled to the top with intestines, stomach, lungs and other vital organs. Through the opaque green plastic he could see a pool of blood swamping the contents.

‘I have to admit, Henry I thought I was going to mess this part up, but if I say it myself, I made a pretty clean job of slicing out the innards.’

From the stack of five remaining pristine boxes, Frederick pulled the top one out and placed it beneath two hooks tied with blue nylon tow-rope to one of the four-by-two ceiling trusses in his garage. He double-checked the next step on page 43.

‘Right, now to bleed it.’

Using a long bladed knife, he cut a hole through each leg, near the foot, between the bone and tendon. Without much effort, he lifted the small carcass and guided the hooks through the holes. He re-positioned the box to ensure all the liquid draining out collected inside it.

‘This takes at least thirty minutes, Henry. Time for a cup of tea, I think.’

Forty-two minutes later, Frederick returned carrying an orange coloured box. After a short struggle to cut the bindings, he took out a brand-new Black & Decker Scorpion saw.

‘Hope this works, Henry.’

Once he’d tested the machine, Frederick put it aside while he unhooked the carcass and laid it on his work bench. Now he was on page 45. He re-read it several times before starting the saw and cutting off the four limbs half-way along from the torso. These went into the next two boxes. The fifth Gles  bin took the head: sawn off at the neck.

‘Okay, Henry. Now I need to get the skin off. This is going to be difficult, I hope the knives are sharp enough.’

It took Frederick almost an hour of careful work, paring the skin away, inch-by-inch, from the muscle fibre beneath. Manipulating the skin away from the stumps was particularly fiddly and time consuming. Finally, the exposed red tissue of the skinned carcass lay on the bench-top. Some blood was released during this stage and it smeared the surface in a random pattern. The skin lay in a crumpled heap inside the last IKEA box.

‘How about that, Henry? Almost done. I just need to cut this into joints and steaks. I think I’ll make some mince as well.’

It was getting dark by the time Frederick finished. The book lay open at a splattered page 51. The limbs had been sliced off and boned, the meat cut into inch cubes. The back-bone, sawn in half (the Scorpion worked well), stripped of meat and chopped into handle-able pieces sat in a refuse-sack along with the ribs. On a shelf above the work-bench, a neat line of twenty-five filled freezer-bags lay, ready for cold storage. Frederick carried them, two in each hand, to an ancient chest-freezer in the corner of the garage. After six trips one bag remained.

‘One more than I expected, Henry. I think we can have this tonight as a reward for our labours, eh? Frederick smiled at his dishevelled, partially bald, German shepherd. ‘Phew, I’m tired. I think I’ll clean all this up in the morning.’

Frederick disappeared into his house. After a few minutes he came back with a stainless steel dog-dish and filled it with meat from the freezer bag.

‘That’ll be the last time any seven-year old apprentice thug ties a rocket to your trusting tail won’t it, Henry.’

The animal, having witnessed the slaughtering and “dressing” of his attacker while tied to a garage-support beam, crouched against the wall trembling spasmodically. Frederick put the bowl on the floor by the work bench and crossed to Henry.

Stroking the dog in an effort to calm him, he loosed the leash. With a puppy-like yelp, Henry took-off  and charged out the garage into the garden, cleared the fence in one jump and headed for “as-far-away-as-possible,” at full speed.