THE MEAL

Walking into the G and H German deli, only one thing was on his mind. There were a hundred different crackers and candies, a myriad of fragrant, well-formed cheeses, bountiful fish, and quite a few delicious deli meats. But among all the tantalizing treasures, only one of the creations was important to him.
“I’ll take eight pounds of rope sausage,” he stammered nervously. His expectations were high. The shopkeeper’s surprise was apparent. The man knew why. Not very many people got more than a couple feet of rope sausage at once. But the deli man had seen gluttons before and quipped, “Don’t eat it all at once.” He began to chuckle, but ceased when he found a scowling face in front of him. The money was exchanged, the deal done.
He held it now. The sausage was cold in his hand. The thin layer of white paper wrapped around it and taped in the corner could not stop the wave, the vitality, the throbbing cold of the sausage. He walked out the door and down the snowy path. The concrete sidewalk was especially full of people, it being a Saturday, but in his mind there was no one. There was only the bundle in his hand. He was glad that his feet knew the way as he stared fixedly on the package. It was all he could think about. Though he planned on eating the delicacy, it was the meat’s turn to consume him. It nibbled at his mind, only a crumb at a time, just as a rat tests a moldy hunk of cheese on a rusty trap. But the cautious bird bites took a toll. His brain was soon half-gone, the remaining portion focused hopelessly on rope sausage.
It took him a bit longer to get home that day. He bumped into eight people. They all got very angry at him. Some shouted, “Watch where you’re going!” Others cried out that their coats would smell like cured meat for weeks. He didn’t hear any of it. He stared at the paper, trying to penetrate the shield with his eyes. But his extreme concentration could not aid him in this matter. He could only tread home, and stare at his sausage.
He kicked up blackened snow sludge with every step, speckling his pant cuffs. He plodded on. His hanging left hand collided with mail boxes and newspaper stands. He continued. The words, “Don’t Walk,” were not enough to stop him, no matter now brightly they flashed. He pressed on ceaselessly, tirelessly, in his march of madness.
His efforts to isolate himself prevailed as he finally looked up to see the door. His journey had been a solitary one, despite the crowd. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key-ring that resembled that of a dungeon-keeper or sheriff. What all the keys opened, no one could guess. The man didn’t even have a car.
He walked down the damp, chilling hallway to the elevator. He would have preferred to use the stairs, but they were out of order. The rickety doors closed him in a space of nine square feet with four other people. Though he was a small man, he was presence was felt, or smelled, rather. By this time, the meat had been in his hand for about an hour. The elevator, in addition to being cramped, was poorly ventilated, and as a result, rather stuffy. Consequently, the four people sharing the elevator with him required no special acuteness of the senses to detect the odor of rope sausage, and sadly, a pleasing aroma is not found among the other merits of the snack. By the time the metal doors parted the flesh of all five travelers smelled like that of various barnyard animals after being smoked and seasoned. The glares exchanged after this incident were of a ghastliness exceeded not even in exaggerated artistic portrayals of evil men. Yet, the unbounded anger of his nearest neighbors could not come between this man and his sausage. His pupils grew and shrank according to the light, but his gaze remained fixed. The metal-laden key-ring was once more pulled out at the door of his apartment. As the door creaked open he stepped into a room that was drearily uncluttered. A table, a chair, a sink, a bed, one fork, one knife, and one change of clothes made up the whole of his personal possessions. The room had no windows and only one dim bulb. His bathroom was that of every tenant on the second floor. But had he been in a mansion that day, it would have made no difference.
He set the prized package on the table and unwrapped it with care. He discarded the paper in a corner of the room. He took the wooden handle of the knife in hand and began to measure out the meat. With unparalleled precision, he cut the sausage into five equal lengths. This being done, he began to delicately squeeze and test each piece of rope sausage several times. After some minutes of such probing, he came to the conclusion that it was not ready. It would need more time to age.
So he sat. He sat in his one chair and stared at the rope sausage. He stared at it until his concept of time was altered, until he could see the meat changing, hardening. He never blinked. He never left the chair. He merely stared. He could begin to feel the things that the meat felt. The two were linked, linked in a way that had never before been achieved by man and sausage. Each wrinkle on its surface was known to him. After three days, he felt as if he saw the sausage through time-lapse photography . The minutes passed with great rapidity. He could feel the water leave the meat and the aroma stiffen. Then, six days after he began his ordeal, he smiled. He had no choice. A grin placed itself on his face in the early hours of the morning. He had had nothing to eat or drink for a week, but his mouth was as wet as ever. A secret whisper passed over his lips.
“It is time.” The words were on his lips, but they were just as much in his eyes. He was the phrase; every part of him sang that it was ready. He didn’t waste any time. As children eat spaghetti, so did he eat the rope sausage. The first section passed from the table to his hands and down his throat in a matter of moments. Sheer hunger and anticipation forced him to do so. It wasn’t his intention. He was embarrassed now and felt… weak. He gathered his wits about him and picked up the second section of rope sausage. This he consumed with much more control. He savored each nibble, admired the texture, absorbed the aroma, and reflected on each individual spice that contributed to that most savory flavor. His teeth knew what was between them and responded accordingly. His jaw pressed firmly on the outer skin until they broke through with a snap. They then softened their grip and cupped in the sustaining, enriching meat. Each morsel, nor more than the snack of a dormouse, was a world in itself, a world in him. After an immeasurable length of time he felt the smooth-cut butt with his tongue, and knew that the second section had been completed.
It was time for an intermission. He took the long tail of his shirt ion hand and wiped his hands. He wiped off the slick, thick grease that was his second finger-skin. He dabbed the corners of his mouth in a way that suggested men in top hats drinking martinis. That is what he was with this sausage. After a long, satisfying drink of water, he returned to his obsessional, dutiful escape. He had eaten two of the five lengths of sausage and was ready to move on to the third.
Though the first two were consumed in primal fashion, using fingers and fangs, he opted to use a knife here. There was no fork, only the single blade. He set neither a reckless nor slothly pace, but insisted on moderation. He sliced off a one-inch portion each time, always at an angle, and swiftly flipped it up to his mouth in one motion that was both a stab and a lift. He did not falter; he approached the task with an undaunted, determined precision. But he did not forget to enjoy it. He was not a machine made of human hands. No, he was a human himself, and no matter what befell him, who tried to crush him, no matter what he remembered or how he ate, he could not forget to enjoy it. This being said, the mechanizing of his meal did seem to shorten it, and it was not long before only two identical tubes of meat faced him. He selected the one on the left. It was midday. He was still using the knife, but now the pieces he cut were only a quarter of an inch in length, and he didn’t eat the pieces as he cut them. He didn’t start until he had properly divided the entire piece. When he popped the first bit into his mouth, he didn’t begin to chew it right away. He waited, let his saliva get to it, let each and every molecule float over his tongue, tickling all of the protruding taste buds. He treated each subsequent piece the same way, paying them such singular attention that he might have named them. He was much like the mother of identical triplets. They were quite alike on first glance, but he knew the difference. He really knew them, all of them, each of them. When the last morsel of the fourth length sat in his mouth it was dusk. He had spent the afternoon getting to know the predestined meat, and enjoying their fate.
Now the evening was upon him and he had one more bit of sausage to deal with. With some difficulty, he stood up, barely able to lift the now substantial swell o his stomach. He looked away toward his dark door and, groping blindly, felt the rope sausage with his fingertips. He walked in a way that showed unwillingness, as if he was carrying out a deed he had decided on earlier, but was having doubts about. He continued out the door and down to the street. But he did not go out onto the sidewalk. He drifted away from the streetlights into the alley behind the apartment building that was filthy enough to disgust even him. He peered into the darkness for some time and threw the final length of rope sausage on the ground. It dropped in a square of dim light that fell down from apartment 2B. He turned away briskly but stopped long enough to see an interested nose and quick teeth. As he rode the elevator back up, the hoped that the dog enjoyed the meal.
He spent hours sitting at the table, examining the grease before him. He looked at the grease and measured it up. Then he heard a noise. Suddenly he remembered that his apartment was terribly loud. His ears sprang to life, finding pipes, neighbors, and a host of other sounds clamoring for his attention. He looked around him and realized that he lived in squalor, in filth that hadn’t been made up in days. He remembered the sausage, remembered himself and began to weep. He wept, and his tears flowed out of his eyes and over his hands. They flowed on the wood, swan over the grease, and died with his sobs. He was gone.