The Palimpsest of a Meat-Packer from the Golden Age of the Corner Store...

Once upon a time, during the days of self-flagellation and parsimony, there

lived a man of no importance in one of those many small towns that dot the

Mid-Western United States. Marked by the depredation of a stultifying-ly

boring job, he stumbled to work every morning acknowledging any passersby

or morning greeting with a perfunctory nod of the head or grunt. "Mr.

Bittle" they might say, "A good morning to you" Deep within the empty slate

of his mind, Mr. Bittle would inscribe a small note of remembrance, a short

aphorism to describe what would otherwise be described as happenstance.

This morning's went something like this... 'A pittance due for the

commonest few, for they are the beggars of tomorrow' ...no, not a one made

for a bit of wisdom with which to tease the intellect and not a one ever

made it to his grocer's notebook in any recognizable form. Inevitably, the

process of walking a hundred yards further to his position as meat-packer

for Armando's Corner-Store and Deli would muddy his edification into

something more like this... 'A penny for the communist's view, for they

have to bear their sorrow' ...not to a poet's form, perhaps, but piquant

and, somehow, prophetic. Regardless, Mr.Bittle had a large notebook full of

such conditioned thoughts and hoped to one day publish them as the musings

of a slumbering literary giant. Unfortunately, as is usually the case in

this nasty business one calls life, Mr. Bittle's dream was disquietedly put

to rest when Armando, the store owner, looking for paper with which to wrap

a customer's leg of lamb, inadvertently grabbed the notebook and ripped out

the heart of its contents folding it neatly and professionally around the

bloody stump of some poor lamb's left back leg. Hours later, Mr. Bittle,

packing his things for the short walk home discovered this tragedy and,

ignobly it might be said, dispatched of Armando in the concise and expert

manner of all trained meat-packers. After a decidedly short and exacting

trial, Mr.Bittle was sent to his death as well, the remains of his notebook

tucked firmly under his arm before the pine box lid was nailed shut thus

closing an imperiously careless and meaningless chapter in American

literary history. Such is the wherefore of deterministic fate and that is,

therefore, the end.