My Year of Meats (27 page)

We followed Anna’s broad back across the slippery floor. It had recently been hosed down and everything felt damp; puddles of pink water collected in the shallow cement depressions around the drains. Under her white coat, Anna was wearing a floral-patterned dress, possibly in honor of us, but on her feet she wore heavy rubber galoshes, which were too big and made her shuffle. The walls of the slaughterhouse were splashed with blood and now I could hear the sound of dripping behind the
shuunck, shuunck
of the knives being sharpened, and also the low, spiraling drone of bluebottle flies, and everything was in a state of horrible suspended animation, waiting for the lambs. We left before they arrived and drove the two and a half hours back to Chicago in silence.

 

 

Sloan came up behind me as I stood by his window, watching the dull waves lick the shore. He wrapped his arms around me and held a glass of wine to my lips, gently supporting my head against his chest as I drank. We had showered and changed, but the metallic aftertaste of the slaughterhouse had lingered at the back of my tongue and only now was cut by the rich red wine. I was suddenly warmed, but wary as well, distrustful of Sloan’s solicitous gesture. It felt soft. It scared me, so I pulled away.

There is nothing soft about Sloan’s apartment. It is all polished surfaces, acute angles, hard glass, cold chrome, and leather. Like an abattoir, it could be hosed down without too much difficulty if anything unsightly, like an attachment or a sentiment, happened to splatter the walls. So the sudden accommodation in Sloan’s manner seemed at odds with his decor as well as with our history. I stood a few feet away from him and waited, hoping he’d adjust his attitude into something that felt more aggressive and familiar, but he just stood there too, watching me.

“So ... ,” he said.

“So...?”

“So here we are....”

I glared at him. It was like bad movie dialogue. I had never seen him hesitate before. I didn’t think it was possible. It made me cranky.

“So what? So I’m here. Do you want to talk? Do you want to fuck?”

“Can you?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, is it safe ... ?”

“Sloan, it wasn’t safe before. Now it is perfectly safe, believe me.”

“I mean, is it safe for ... our baby.”

It was the first time I’d heard him say the words. “Our baby.” I had steeled myself against this notion of “our.” That was the agreement I’d made with myself. I could have the baby, provided I root out all desire for “our.” This baby would be mine, no strings attached. But when I heard Sloan say “our baby,” watched him form the words on his lips and launch them into the world, it was like conjuring. It made me gasp. Buckled my knees and triggered the longing. I didn’t know how to respond. Words weren’t safe, but sex could be, so I walked over to him and pulled his head down and kissed him, and we sort of goose-stepped into the bedroom and took our clothes off. We lay down side by side and he cautiously inspected my abdomen as though there might be a land mine or something equally perilous and as easily triggered concealed there, and when he’d run his hand across its gentle protuberance, satisfied that it was safe and smooth and solid, he hoisted himself gingerly on top of me and prepared to enter. And without really meaning to, I stopped him.

“Aren’t you going to wear a condom?”

“Why? You said it was safe, didn’t you? It’s not like I can impregnate you again.”

He was right, of course, and it took me a minute to pinpoint my objection.

“No. It’s not about safety. It’s a question of manners. I don’t want you leaving any more bits of yourself around inside me. It’s too ... personal. We’ve just never had that kind of relationship.”

Sloan rolled back onto his side of the bed and looked at me, shaking his head in exasperation.

“Takagi, you are making me insane. What do you want from me?” And at that, I exploded. I sat up in bed. The narrative seemed simple enough to me. He’d duped me into having unprotected sex with him in Fly, implying at the time that he wanted a deeper commitment, and then when the sex was over, he made it quite clear that it had been an experiment, conducted because I, the sterile laboratory animal, was safe, or so we both thought at the time. And then, after New Jersey, despite my obvious distress and my obvious desire for greater intimacy, he avoided me, continued to reject my repeated attempts at—

“What repeated attempts?”

“I called you ...”

“Once, maybe twice.”

“Well ...”

“I travel. I always called you back as soon as I got your messages. Anyway, you were the one putting me off. As soon as you started directing those damn programs, that was it. You never had any time, or you’d invite me someplace and then cancel.... If there were any repeated attempts, they were mine—”

“Yeah, after you knew I was pregnant and you felt guilty—”

“Guilty! I did not ... I have never felt the slightest bit guilty. When you told me you were pregnant, I was scared, surprised ... I don’t know. I was happy. Stupid, maybe. I don’t know what I thought would happen. But then in the next breath you call me from some jail to tell me you intend to abort the baby and never want to see me again.”

“You
told
me
to abort!”

“Never. You said you didn’t want the pregnancy, that you were sorry. Of course I assumed you wanted an abortion. I was crushed.”

“But you sent the check.”

“What was I supposed to do? It’s your body. But I called and called and faxed, and finally here you are. With the baby.”

“So ... ?”

“So ... nothing. So there. Everything worked out after all.”

We sat there on the bed and glared at each other. I wasn’t so sure. It sounded sweet but just seemed too easy. Still, as I watched his frown yield to amusement and a satisfied smile creep over his face, I thought I might be willing to put some of my reservations on hold and consider his version of things. And this took about a second, or maybe two, and then all I could feel was this inane joy, glutting my heart.

“You want me to get a condom?”

“Forget it.”

It was odd sex. Odd for us. Suspended and tentative at first, it slowly gathered into something we could both agree upon, negotiating each thrust with a clear-eyed rush of collective purpose. Unlike our insular and lopsided encounters of the past, it was, instead, equally thrilling. Sex was not about mastery, more about choice, which this time did not disappoint me.

 

 

On the way to the airport in the Taurus the next morning, I told Sloan about my ongoing research, and he was suitably impressed.

“So what you’re basically saying is that the residues in meat from hormones, steroids, pesticides, bacterial and viral contaminants, will lead to cancers, infertility, brain fevers, and a host of other illnesses, which we will not be able to cure with antibiotics because our tolerances have been jacked up by the residues also found in meat? So we are doomed to die young and not be able to reproduce ourselves in the bargain?”

“Well, more or less. You see my quandary? I peddle the stuff....”

“Pretty bleak. However, I just heard a story on the news that forensic medicine is having to reinvent itself because the preservatives in food have changed the rate of a body’s decay after death. So there’s the upside. You die younger, perhaps, but you get to hang around longer after you’re dead.”

“Sloan, that is so dumb.”

“No, Jane. It’s
faux
dumb.”

Dead right. That’s precisely what we are—politically, ethically, aesthetically—in premillennium America.

We pulled up at the terminal and unloaded my suitcase, and I let Sloan do curbside check-in for me, then I let him kiss me, too, and left him standing there, leaning against the Taurus, eyes narrowed with what I took to be concern, watching me disappear off to Denver. I liked it. It felt good.

The line of salted smelts hissed and popped over the gas grill. Akiko flipped them, careful not to burn the little bamboo skewer that pierced the bottoms of their delicately gaping jaws. The
mozuku
was ready, a fresh pond-algae salad garnished with vinegar and a pinch of ginger, and the tofu was chilling in the refrigerator. She would also serve some very young flounder, deep fried until the bones were crisp and fragile. But first she had steamed some fresh soybeans for John to nibble on before dinner, dusting them with coarse salt so that they would sweat in their pods. She knew he enjoyed these with his beer, although it was no longer summer.

John was in the living room, watching television. Akiko entered, carrying a large lacquered tray. He watched as she knelt by the low table and unloaded the dozen or so small dishes. His eyes narrowed. She could feel it. He was thinking. And then:

“What’s going on.” It was not a question. He knew.

“I’m sorry ...?”

“Don’t play dumb. This is the fifth night in a row that we’ve had Japanese food. And no meat. You think I don’t notice? What is the meaning of this?”

“Nothing ... There was a nice sale at the fishmongers of young flounder—”

“Baka!
Stupid. Don’t insult me. Why won’t you serve me meat? You know I like meat. I work for meat and it is my duty to eat it. I will not be made into a traitor to my company and to my clients by my wife.”

Akiko stared down, watching the bonito flakes twitch slowly, then wilt on top of the chilled tofu.

“I just thought it would be nice for a change,” she whispered.

He said nothing, waiting for her real answer. She had no choice but to continue.

“And, well, there was something I heard the other day, about bad meat....”

“Where did you hear this?”

“Uh ... at the dry cleaners. At Hashimoto Dry Cleaners. It was one of the wives....”

“What did she say?” ,

Akiko’s voice was barely audible, not even a whisper now. “That there are things in meat...”

“What? What things? Speak loudly. I can’t hear you.”

“Hormones and other bad medicines that can make a man ...”

“Can make a man what?”

“Can make a man ... incapable.”

“Incapable of what?”

“Of performing sex. Or of making a child ...”

John stared, then leaned back and burst out laughing. “You really are stupid. Believing a bunch of gossiping women.”

“So it’s not true, then?”

“That meat causes impotence? Absolutely not. Quite the reverse. On one of the upcoming programs of
My American Wife
! you will see a man who fathered a child at the age of seventy-two, and he was able to do it because he eats red meat every day.”

Akiko relaxed, laughed with relief. “Then that other part, about the hamsters, couldn’t be—”

As soon as she said it, she knew she had made a terrible mistake.

“Nothing ... I mean ...”

John was silent, weighing her words, recollecting. “Where did you find it?” he asked.

“What?”

“The fax. The fax from America. From Takagi ...”

There was no point in lying. “In your suit pocket. Old Mrs. Hashimoto found it. She teased me in front of all the other neighborhood wives. She said it was a love letter from your lover in America....”

“So you read it?”

“Of course I read it. It is my right. As your wife, I mean.”

John sat back and watched her, but she knew she had to outwait him; it was her only hope. She had stumbled onto the sole viable self-defense—her wifely entitlement to the contents of his pockets. It was the only maneuver that would flatter him, and if he bought it, maybe she would not get hit. Finally he spoke.

“Kimiwa baka ne,”
he said, relaxing. “Of course you are jealous. But you don’t need to doubt me.” He picked up his chopsticks and skewered a salty smelt. “Mmm,” he said, biting it in half. “Delicious. Filled with eggs.”

Akiko quietly relaxed and set the tray aside. She had been holding it close by, just in case, to use as a shield for her face. She vowed to keep perfectly silent for the rest of the evening. Everything seemed fine now, but she didn’t trust herself not to make another stupid error. She picked up the little fish, piercing its fat, oily belly with the tip of her chopsticks, then ground the bones between her teeth.

The Colorado scout was a great success. Bunny Dunn was all I’d hoped for. I faxed Ueno from the hotel, but I knew he’d go with her. He has a soft spot in his heart for Texas women. Bunny and her ancient husband drove me to a beef trade show, where I took care of all my souvenir needs. For the boys in the office I got kitchen magnets from Lambert Pharmaceuticals, shaped like voluptuous humanoid cows in cocktail gowns, with the words “Ready when you are ... big shot!” in dialogue bubbles over their heads. For the research girls, I got pink sun visors that said “Beef Babes Are Best,” and also these small square green tins of a lanolin substance called Bag Balm, for applying to cows’ chafed udders. It looks just like Vaseline, and ranchers and their wives all swear by it. The illustration on the tin is right out of a 1920s Sears catalog, a hand-drawn sketch depicting an elegant set of swollen teats encircled by an oval cameo frame. The girls loved this.

I found a T-shirt for Kenji with a cartoon of a long line of bulls in front of an unemployment office, with a caption that read “Sidewinders.” He admired the shirt and thanked me politely, then followed me into my office and closed the door behind us.

“This came for you while you were gone.”

He held out three pages of faxes. This was odd. Usually he just posted them on my board.

“When I noticed who they were from, I thought I ought to keep them ... secure.”

The cover sheet read “From: Akiko Ueno.” The name meant nothing to me. Then I glanced at the first page.

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, that’s more or less what I thought. I read them through, of course.”