On the Line by Joseph Ponthus

Author:Joseph Ponthus [Ponthus, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800243989
Publisher: Head of Zeus

36.

There are some jokes

They make you laugh all day long

They even make your day

Especially if it’s a beautiful day

It’s Friday

The start of spring

At knock-off time at noon it’s a grand day outside

I’m still laughing like a fool

Clocking on at five am the boss says

‘In ten minutes you’re changing station so you can be trained up for where you’ll be next week’

That means there’ll be one more week’s work at least

More cash coming in

So a new fridge upstream on the line

The animals are not yet quartered

But have been halved lengthwise

Twenty-four rails of thirty animals each about four hundred kilos

Two hundred and ninety tonnes easy

The animals have to be brought out one by one so they can be sawn and cut into quarters

Nothing to think about

Even less than usual

Just have to keep dragging like a draught horse

Even more than usual

I push five lots of five beasts at a time

Works out at about two good tonnes a go

The toughest thing is getting them past the bends running from the side rails to the main rail

At the end of which is where the cutters work

You always have to make sure they have a supply of animals so they don’t have to go off looking for their shit

And most importantly

Most important

Do not forget to remove the hanger steak from inside each animal so it can be put into a tub that a bloke comes to fetch every half-hour

I love hanger steak

The ‘butcher’s cut’ as it’s known

A muscle from the cow’s diaphragm

Just one

Long fibres

Tasty

And costs a bomb

I’m on my own in my huge fridge

Calm and determined

I’m hard at it dragging like a madman

I’m tearing off my hanger steaks

And I’m laughing laughing laughing

The boss comes by to see me

‘All good with the new job’

‘Yeah boss yeah

But there is one thing

I’ve just worked out why

There’s a shit tonne more blood on the floor in my new fridge than there was in the others’

‘Yeah really’

‘The steaks are higher’

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