“Staylerry Aura” by Jackson Cook, XI: short story......................................................................................56-58,60-63 “Italian Shotgun” by Grace Romano, X: photography

“Italian Shotgun” by Grace Romano, X: photography

So there were ten of us farmers in the slaughterhouse that morning getting ready to make Darwin proud. I put on my yellow waterproof apron and started sharpening my knives.

So it was us in the yellow aprons and latex gloves, getting ourselves situated, with Boss walking around giving everyone a task for the day.

It was also quiet—a weird quiet, I had thought. It was the kind of quiet on shore before a massive hurricane comes with its brutal rain and Judgement Day winds.

I didn’t want to be Cutter because the warm blood on my hands grossed me out last time, and I didn’t think I could do it again. But Boss came around and sent me to be Catcher; I was glad.

I figure I should explain my odd vocabulary, like Darwin defining his terms in the Origin.

Slaughtering was a laborious task that involved the whole farm in a twisted kind of assembly line. It all started with the Catcher, the person who caught the birds from the trailer using a tool to sweep their leg as they flapped in your face (the trick, I learned, was to grab both legs as fast as possible so they couldn’t claw you and escape).

When the Catcher got a nice grasp on the legs, he handed the live thing to the Transporter whose duty was to take it over to the steel apparatus with three upside-down cones and pick one to poke the turkey head through.

Next, it was the Cutter’s turn.

The Cutter grabbed it’s face in one hand and slid their knife quickly under the front side of its neck. When it was all done, he threw the severed head into the Turkey Bucket—where all the gross heads of the turkeys were thrown. Oh—that Turkey Bucket was one of the strongest emitters of the queer mood on Staylerry I alluded to before because they all looked alive; some still blinked, too, and when the eyes were open for that small second, they made me shiver.

Next, the Cutter cut the legs off and someone else came to haul the bloody carcass over to a big pot of boiling water and shove it in, making sure to not burn his fingers or anything on the searing water.

You know, dear reader, the water was to loosen the feathers.

“I know it’s natural to kill animals.

“I read about Darwin, Gene.”

“So why did I think I was going to hell every time I pulled a turk’s neck taught like a rope and slid the knife? I think it’s because if Mom heard I was killing turkeys and other things, she’d ball her fists and shout— but I just don’t know.” My therapist Gene says, “Tell me more, Jack.” “Well, when the turkey’s head was shoved through that shiny metal cone apparatus, I liked to watch the turkey head blink at me for a sec; you know, gulping and realizing that there will be no more days of flying and trotting around the farm with the fellow birds. Even before that! The turkeys knew they were going to die when I went into that van, too! They scattered away, like pepper in water, in an effort to not be the first one plucked and dragged and decapitated— and no matter what, they always went to that doggone cone apparatus and got cut by the Cutter. “And that strikes me as a fantastic symbol of everything, Gene. Don’t you agree?” “Jack!” my Therapist was horrified, “When did this all happen?” I waved my hand dismissively.

With the first cut of the first turkey, the first blood stain on my cousin Fred’s apron, the slaughter began. So my cousin was Cutter.

And fifteen minutes in, I noticed the turkeys were killing each other in the van. As I kept plucking their buddies, they kept piling on top of each other at the other side of the trailer—because no money guy wants to be plucked—and eventually when I pulled the catcher-tool from the pile, the dumb turkey didn’t flap or even squirm. God, it was a limp bird, which was the creepiest thing. So I called Boss over, you know, leaning out the van’s metal, glassless windows, calling, “Boss! These turks are killing each other.” Things got weird. He jumped in and started manhandling the birds—immediately they knew who he was and, in a frenzy, flapped to the other side. What was left was twenty dead turkeys littering the ground. Boss acted as if the slaughterhouse didn’t exist. Staylery didn’t exist—just this crimson trailer with Boss staring over his poor red-deflated balloons. And with his bloody apron he picked a carcass up by the neck, watching its swinging pendulum body rock in his grasp—we didn’t talk. I felt extremely odd, watching as Boss pulled his hair and held his dead little bird by the neck like that. He threw it against the side of the trailer. For the first time on Staylerry I saw Boss lose his composure, halting his perpetual forward motion, and I was spooked. Then I knew why he was acting so weird: he felt the truth of his farm, those spirits floating peacefully up towards Him with glory and open arms. Or it was how much money he lost. The former, of course, shook me.

I have this dream that deprives me of sleep, even still in my sad forties: Boss and I, sitting, watching silently as those poor weeping souls float towards the sky. There’s no turkey van—just clouds surround us with angelic golden light. Then something makes me scream, shout, and wake up all in a haste. Back on Staylerry, Boss snapped out of it and shot up and we went to work. You see, when the turkey dies, its meat becomes unharvestable after awhile (I don’t know why, it just does), and that’s why it was all such a big deal, I realized. He didn’t care about those spirits. Simply, I had cost him four hundred bucks.

But we tried to harvest them anyway—you know, to save some money—and Boss hollered to the boys to come grab a few turks. We rushed the bodies through the assembly line with Boss yelling feverishly, Hurry up! We’re losing money! in our ears. Blood spewed as everybody’s fingers got cut, but there was simply no time for band aids while money was on the line. Cone apparatus, boiling water, gutting table. Cone apparatus, boiling water, gutting table. Cone apparatus, boiling water, gutting table. Cone apparatus, boiling water, gutting table. Cone apparatus, boiling water, gutting table. Cone apparatus, boiling water, gutting table. —That’s what happens to turkeys, even if they pile up on the other side of the van or flap their wings or kill their friends.

They all go through the cone apparatus, boiling water, and gutting table. And, of course, Bill and I cleaned the holy red turkey van after the chaos, like we always did, like janitors cleaning out The Company’s old office so The Landlord can sell it to some new money guys just so they can be slaughtered like the old ones. A shame, that Money Guy fate is.

- Jackson Cook XI: short story